SAUL CHASE

Recent Paintings

SEPT 8 – NOV 1, 2004

– PRESS RELEASE

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Saul Chase

Recent Paintings
Noir Luminism

September 8-November 1

New York, NY- Maya Stendhal Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Saul Chase.

Art critic Douglas Kelley has coined the term “Noir Luminism” to describe Chase's style. He praises these emotionally complex vistas as “breathtaking fantasy landscapes” inspired by nature and memory. The atmospheric lighting effect echoes that of the 19tth century American art sub genre, Luminism, which was an outgrowth of the Hudson River School. Their focus was “the majestic landscape bathed in the mystical light of a pristine sky with an emphasis on Nature's grand scale” (Kelley). Among these artists were Frederick E. Church (in his early career), Fitz Hugh Lane, John F. Kensett, and Sanford R. Gifford. Chase's Noir Luminism delves deeper by abstracting nature and it's emotional effect on a human's memory.

Saul Chase is known primarily for his hard-edged cityscapes; this exhibition represents a significant thematic and stylistic departure from his earlier work. Chase will be showing two series of paintings: Answering Light, twelve compositions in acrylic and graphite on panel (55 in. x 48 in.), and The Beautiful Hours, small oil paintings on paper, arranged as polyptychs and boxed in plexiglass.

The paintings in Answering Light are landscape-derived, sensual explorations of memory; they balance an improvisatory, associative freedom in brushwork with a studied exploration of planar depth. Painted on gessoed wood panels, these works are meant to invoke the feeling of fresco, that is, to be at once flat object and penetrable image. A limited-edition book, titled The Beautiful Hours, comprising twenty images culled from the series of paintings, will also be available to accompany the exhibition. The book, designed and printed by Ruth Lingen using hand-set caslon types on Somerset paper, and bound by Mark Tomlinson, is signed and numbered in an edition of forty.

This is Saul Chase's first major exhibition since the nineteen-eighties, and marks the significant reemergence of a reclusive talent. Saul Chase's work is in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Joseph Hirschorn Collection, and The High Museum of Art. He has exhibited his work at the A.C.A. Galleries, Andrew Crispo Gallery, Gallery Yves Arman, the Robert Miller Gallery, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chase earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from The City College of New York, and an M.A., also in Fine Arts, from CUNY.

The Opening Reception will take place on September 8, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

For additional information, or to receive a press kit, please contact Maya Stendhal Gallery.


Maya | Stendhal | Gallery
545 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
T 212.366.1549
F 212.366.1531
www.mayastendhalgallery.com